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Dean calls Fox News ‘absolutely racist’ for aiding Sherrod ouster

Former Democratic National
Committee Chairman Howard Dean accused Fox News of promoting racism, including
in the recent fracas over the Obama administration’s forced resignation of
Agriculture Department official Shirley Sherrod.

“Let’s just be blunt about
this … I think Fox News did something that was absolutely racist,” Dean charged
on “Fox News Sunday.”

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Dean said Fox helped
promote the charges that Sherrod — who is black — made racist comments about
white farmers, which led to her forced resignation Monday.

The fervor was built around a
video of Sherrod speaking at an event hosted by the NAACP shown online by
conservative blogger Andrew Breitbart.

But the video showed her
comments without the surrounding context, and the accusations of racial
discrimination against Sherrod proved unfounded. President Obama subsequently
apologized to Sherrod on Thursday, and the administration has offered to reinstate
her as USDA’s director of rural development in Georgia.

“Fox News was not blameless
during this,” Dean said. “You played it up.”

But host Chris Wallace shot
back, “I know facts are inconvenient things, but let’s deal with the facts.”
They include that Fox News did not play the clip or mention her name before the
Obama administration forced Sherrod on Monday to step down, he said.

Dean said the clip was about
to run on Glenn Beck’s program on Fox, “which is what the administration was
afraid of.”

“I think we need to stop
being afraid of Glenn Beck and the racist fringe of the Republican Party,” Dean
said, emphasizing he was not accusing Wallace himself of racism.

Former GOP House Speaker Newt
Gingrich — who appeared in the same Fox News Sunday segment — retorted, “If the
Obama administration is this afraid of Glenn Beck, how do they deal with the
Iranians?”

“There may be some
similarities, Newt,” Dean quipped.

Jackson also said social
media pressure was partly to blame for the administration’s quick decision to
ouster Sherrod.

“The idea of an avalanche of
news media accusing them of being racist is offensive and politically
threatening,” Jackson said. When the news story broke about the Breitbart video
clip, “It frightened the White House,” Jackson said. “They didn’t want to be
accused of being racist and of course they ignored due process [and] were wrong
in overreacting.”

But what Breitbart did “was
morally wrong,” Jackson said.

There is a new “social media culture” that causes a “fear
factor,” Jackson said.

UPDATED 4:37 p.m. Monday: Fox Senior Vice President of News Michael Clemente criticized Dean for reflexively blaming Fox and took a shot at him for his 2004 loss in the Democratic primary. "As we said this past week, some people such as the failed candidate Dean reflexively blame Fox for almost anything."